Moist Haunted

For their Spring production Kelvedon Players invited one of their members, Heidi Hamber to write a Farcical Comedy entitled “Moist Haunted”. The production was directed by Rosemary Townsend.

The premise of the play is of a television crew coming to “Gore Pit Opera House” to make a sexy version of a well-known Ghost Investigation programme. With ghosts a plenty, a Fitness class and a Marshall Art’s class thrown into the mix, the scene is set for a action packed farce. The final scene gives a séance which provides the dénouement as to why there have been so many hauntings.

In very minute letters, at the bottom of the two page programme, it states that this production contains adult themes and language .This was certainly not a show for children as the base level comedy and language started right from the beginning, going through the whole of the two and a half hours of the play. This gave some of the audience plenty of chances to laugh out loud and enjoy the over the top humour.

Lead roles were Heidi Hamber, (Titania Rogers) (Titty), portraying a sexy Opera singer who has been invited onto the show. She was accompanied by Egyptian archaeologist Humphrey Rowbottom (John Holmes). Both acted outrageously over the top, they worked well together. With various stages of undress and a lit up cod piece, John gave us an energetic performance with great glee, obviously enjoying every moment. Heidi was as usual, word perfect; she gave a beautiful rendition of a song from Madame Butterfly and in her one quiet moment with the ghost Colin, gave us a very truthful, acting moment talking of the love for her father.

Ron Stobart was the harassed director of the Ghost Investigation programme, giving clear projection. He had a TV crew of Technician Mike (David Landman), Cameraman Leo Tarquin-Jones (Luke Cannon) and a further technician Jeff (Jim Self), who spent most of the evening bending down away from the audience showing his bottom. Once is funny, twice maybe but throughout the play it got a bit tiresome.

Makeup artist Sandy was ably acted by Kelly Brown. In a bright pink, velour tracksuit with the words 'Juicy' on top and bottom she hammed it up wonderfully, chewing gum throughout the show, giving us a real Towie character.

Russ Winsor as Colin, the real ghost, who had once been the projectionist, gave us a quiet, thoughtful, warm character that was actually nice to see after so much loud and energetic acting. He was also Steve Marshall the Marshall Arts instructor.

Emily Clarke played both the roles of interviewer Eliza Fleming and the French Opera Ghost Madeleine. Both were played well although sometimes I found it hard to hear what Eliza was saying, as projection was sometimes an issue but as Madeleine she was much more forthcoming and I expect she enjoyed that role much more as it gave her a chance to really overact with a good ghostly costume.

John Elliott (Giles) the owner of the Opera House was not given much to characterise in this play, which was a shame as he is a strong actor, who, in just the short periods he was on, gave us a good performance. The dénouement showed him as being behind the hauntings and difficulties which ensued. He was finally arrested and lead away by the authorities.

The Keep Fit team of Glynis Yates, Zoe Carter and Jane Waters were a fun, added extra to the production.

Set was very basic but worked well and the costumes were as usual excellent. Lighting was fine but sometimes the sound was just a little lacking. The vibration sounds in the séance scene meant we couldn't hear clearly what was being said. The use of projection to identify ghostly ancestors added to the production.

At two and a half hours in length I think that this production could have been cut a little but the audience enjoyed the whole night. There was obviously a lot of hard work that went into this production and we congratulate you all on being brave enough to try something very different.

Christine Davidson

Noda District 8 Rep

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